Gervonta Davis has been involved in several controversial moments throughout his career, but being stripped of his title in 2017 was one of the biggest.
It was announced earlier this week that Gervonta Davis will shockingly take on Jake Paul in a huge clash on November 14 from the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.
In his last outing, ‘Tank’ scored a controversial draw against Lamont Roach Jr, and it seemed as though the two would take part in an immediate rematch before the huge news dropped.
That marked the first blemish in Davis’ impressive 31 fight career, however, it’s a career that has involved controversy throughout.
Davis was stripped of his title despite scoring huge KO win on Mayweather vs McGregor undercard
In 2017, ‘Tank’ Davis was booked to defend his title against Francisco Fonseca in what was the biggest opportunity of his career at that point, as it was the co-main event to Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor.
Fonseca was undefeated at the time and won the opportunity over former champion Roman Martinez. However, the fight was dealt a huge blow when Davis turned up an hour late to weigh-ins and weighed in 2lbs heavy for the featherweight bout.
Despite Fonseca having made the 130lb limit, Davis refused to weigh-in for a second time and was subsequently stripped of his IBF featherweight title.
Although Davis missed weight, the fight went ahead and only Fonseca was able to win the vacant title. The fight was being billed as an easy fight for Davis, but it took him a few rounds to get into the groove of the fight.
It was in round eight when even more controversy struck after Davis landed a huge left hook which dropped Fonseca to his knees.
The challenger couldn’t make it back to his feet and the result was later disputed after replays showed the punch landing on the back of his head.
Davis claimed Fonseca took advantage of being hurt by brutal body shot
Following the fight, Davis was booed by the crowd for the way in which his win came about, but he attempted to offer an explanation as to why Fonseca stayed down.
“I actually caught him with a body shot before that and he was hurt. So he took advantage of me hitting him to the back of the head and went down,” Davis told the Showtime broadcast.
‘Tank’ never went on to reclaim his IBF featherweight title and instead continued to move up the weight divisions.